The Colombia Global Seminar is a hands-on Studio, at ENVD we target the studio to our students in Planning, Landscape and Architecture. In this studio we work alongside marginalized communities in Medellin, Colombia and engage in identifying what are their needs. Students lead the planning, design and building process of projects that try to resolve community selected issues. Past programs have built water collection systems, gathering spaces, community gardens, paved streets and stairs that improve access to neighborhoods.
The main goal of the studio is to expose students to a real-life scenario in which they can put into practice some of the theoretical and practical tools taught in their ENVD education process.
Furthermore, specific goals of the studio are:
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Expose students to the realities of working with marginalized communities
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Identify community needs using planning tools
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Develop strategies that respond to real community identified needs
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Co-produce with community design and planning responses to their needs
During the course student are trained and expect to:
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Process and organize information collected from the site visit, coupled with new findings;
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Revise the criteria and preliminary design proposals
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Design and run community meetings
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Research the “state of the art” in urban strategies for the intervention on contexts of urban informality;
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Develop new criteria and design proposals;
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Deliver a set of conclusions and recommendations;
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Produce a handbook/dossier of the course.
The studio hands-on workshop environment enables students to generate quick ideas and strategies. Through photographs, video-recordings, lectures, interviews, city tours, site visits and informative conversations with faculty, public officials and professionals of city-making, students will be able to start gathering knowledge on urban synergies and successful projects on the city; they will be able to learn from the Con-vivamos (community partner) board the goals and projects of the community, and with their own interests choose within the different lines of investigation that will continue to be researched through mapping, design and execution of projects.